Every major (and many minor) carrier in the United States jumped on the iPhone bandwagon as soon as AT&T lost its exclusive chokehold on the device. One of the only holdouts in the mobile industry in the United States was T-Mobile. T-Mobile has allowed consumers that already own an iPhone from other carriers to bring their device to its network, but didn't offer the phone directly.

During its "Uncarrier" event today, T-Mobile unveiled its plans to launch the iPhone 5 on its network. However, T-Mobile is doing things a bit differently compared to its rivals. The wireless company will offer the iPhone 5 for $99, and customers will repay the remainder of the phone’s full cost over 24 months at $20/month. Once the phone is completely paid off, the $20/month payment is removed from your monthly bill. Pre-orders start on April 5, and the the phone will be available on April 12.

T-Mobile’s strategy is different from traditional wireless carriers that still charge you full price for your wireless service even after it recoups the costs for subsidizing the phone over the course of a two-year contract.

As for T-Mobile’s new Simple Choice Plan, the company describes it as follows:

Customers start with one line at $50 per month for unlimited talk, text and Web with 500MB of high-speed data. Customers can add a second phone line for $30 per month, and each additional line is just $10 per month. They can also add 2 GB of high-speed data for $10 per month more per line. Unlimited 4G data is only $20 more per month per line. No caps. No overages. Just simple value.

In addition to the launch of the iPhone 5, T-Mobile announced the launch of its LTE service in Baltimore; Houston; Kansas City; Las Vegas; Phoenix; San Jose, Calif.; and Washington, D.C.

But those embedded taxes overall are much lower, yes, combined with the fact that the after-purchase tax is whatever the local sales tax rate is (or zero online). Plus the inherent efficiency of a single market, where Europe still has weak but existent national borders, language barriers, regulations etc.